It’s been a while (five good years actually) since we’ve done this, and so we’ve gone ahead and asked the musicians whom we worked with this year in some respect or other, to tell us about their favorite albums of 2021.
Ziad Nawfal’s November 2021 mix for Radio Alhara in Bethlehem featured a guest takeover from Beacon Sound’s ANDREW NEERMAN:
“In anticipation of the release of Proof By Infinite Descent, Anthony Sahyoun’s debut album on Ruptured and Beacon Sound, I’ve taken over Ziad Nawfal’s hour on Radio Alhara today and assembled this unavoidably melancholic, yet occasionally buoyant, mix of friends and fellow travelers, as well as a few of my favorite tracks from the album. Hope you enjoy – Andrew”
1. Sary Moussa – In Praise Of Shadows
2. Massive Attack – Fatalism (Sakamoto/Takahashi Remix)
3. Anthony Sahyoun – The New World
4. Fadi Tabbal and Julia Sabra – Roots
5. William Basinski – O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow
6. Burial – Endorphin
7. Fever Ray – Dry And Dusty
8. Tim Hecker – Castrati Stack
9. Aya Metwalli – Matkhafsh Menni
10. Muqata’a – Ma Wara’
11. Anthony Sahyoun – Jesuit Literature Drowning In The Mediterranean
12. Gabriel Saloman – Adhere Pt 3
13. Anthony Sahyoun – Irhamna (Amulets Remix)
14. Beacon Sound Choir – Fortunate Ones
RELEASING 19 NOVEMBER 2021 ON RUPTURED: First solo album by Lebanese musician Anthony Sahyoun, marking the launch of the ‘Corrosion Series’ by Ruptured Records in Beirut and Beacon Sound in Portland.
After making a name for himself over the last decade in Beirut’s vibrant contemporary music scene, Anthony Sahyoun unveils his solo debut, the evocative and atmospheric Proof By Infinite Descent. Using guitar, synthesizer and voice, Sahyoun tackles themes of mourning, accidental prophecy, and the new holy trinity of God, Capitalism, and Technology – all while mining the seams of experimental electronica and gravity-defying ambient music. Restless, haunting, at times breathtakingly beautiful, this is an album that seeks to rattle cages rather than soothe the comfortable.
Anthony Sahyoun co-founded instrumental rock outfit Kinematik in 2015, in the remote village of Reyfoun in the Lebanese mountains. To this day, the band has released three full-length albums entitled Ala’ (Ruptured, 2017), Murur Al-Kiram (Beacon Sound/Ruptured, 2020) and Al Jadi (Ruptured/Annihaya, 2021).
As a solo artist, Sahyoun works on electronic processing of acoustic elements, programming, drone and ambient music – his music has been described as “apocalyptic, rich and emotionally charged.” His first EP, Post Coital Tristesse, was released under the moniker Mme Chandelier by Ruptured in 2016.
Proof By Infinite Descent is the first installment in the “Corrosion Series”, a new project by longtime collaborators Ruptured and Beacon Sound that aims to showcase Beirut’s blast-resistant music scene, while building cultural connective tissue in a time of institutional corrosion.
To accompany the release of the album, Beacon Sound and Ruptured have commissioned two remixes of key album tracks, from Beirut-based producer Sary Moussa and Portland-based producer Amulets. Both remixes will be given away as bonus tracks with the purchase of the full album.
Available as a digital album and a limited edition transparent vinyl LP.
Quite the honor to be interviewed by Wafa Khochen for her weekly show Micro-Ondes.
We spoke about the early days of Ruptured Records, the creation of the label with Fadi Tabbal, our series of radio compilations, and recent spate of physical and digital releases.
1. Scrambled Eggs – Bleeding Nun (2006)
2. The Incompetents – Cannibal Blues (Ruptured Session, 2011)
3. Safar – Wa Namshi (2017)
4. Postcards – Revolvers (2018)
5. Interbellum – Ready to Dissolve (2018)
6. The Bunny Tylers – One of These Days (2017)
7. Munma – Muse (2016)
Ziad Nawfal’s 9th monthly mix for Movement Radio in Athens – featuring music from Lebanon, Egypt, Indonesia, Germany, the UK, Canada and the USA. This mix was commissioned and produced by Onassis Cultural Center, and presented for the first time in the frame of MOVEMENT RADIO.
1. Stellar Banger – Intro [LB/DE] 2. Two or The Dragon – Dance Grooves for The Weary (Part I) [LB] 3. Jawad Nawfal – Between Scylla And Charybdis [LB] 4. Liliane Chlela – Moukassarat [LB] 5. Rêves Sonores – Seers Theme [CA] 6. Fadi Tabbal – On the Escape Boat [LB] 7. Etyen & Khansa – Athoubu Fih [LB] 8. Dwarfs of East Agouza – Camel Toe [EG/CA/US] 9. Ambulance vs Ambulance – From 1804 To Bearpit [UK] 10. TEDTEDTED – Cama [LB] 11. Nur Jaber – Black Potion [LB] 12. Stephanie Merchak – Kabau (Senyawa Rework) [ID/LB] 13 Bana Haffar – Assimilation [LB]
Ziad Nawfal’s monthly mix for Radio Ma3azef in Tunis:
1. Stellar Banger – Intro PREMIERE
2. Two or The Dragon – Dance Grooves for The Weary [excerpt] PREMIERE
3. Sharif Sehnaoui & Tony Elieh – Woe to Him [excerpt]
4. Liliane Chlela & Ziad Moukarzel – Dahr el Baydar [excerpt]
5. Anthony Sahyoun & Jad Atoui – Walls Don’t Blink [excerpt]
6. Fadi Tabbal & Julia Sabra – Roots
7. Elyse Tabet & Jawad Nawfal – Courbe Lisse
8. Charbel Haber & Sary Moussa – And Yet Another Romance on A Sinking Ship [excerpt]
9. Aya Metwalli & Nadia Daou – Saturnus [excerpt]
TWO OR THE DRAGON Two or the Dragon is the electro-acoustic duo of Lebanese musicians Abed Kobeissy and Ali Hout. The project was initiated in 2014, when the two players were asked to compose scores for contemporary dance and theater performances. The duo’s unapologetic approach to traditional Arabic music hints at deconstruction, dance grooves, industry, satire and a deniable melancholy, in a manner reminiscent of early recordings by Einsturzende Neubauten, Laibach or Throbbbing Gristle.
Hout and Kobeissy approach Beirut’s industrial vistas both as a local aesthetic and a main element of their work: the unique sound of processed buzuq (Levantine long-necked lute) and percussion, combined with the two musicians’ rich background in traditional Arabic music, takes the sonic, visual and pseudo-political day-to-day that is Beirut and reflects it onto a hyper-realistic soundscape.
Rather than a contemporary rendering of traditional Arabic music, Two or The Dragon’s music is saturated with their city’s aural components. The restless din of Beirut plays a major role in shaping the duo’s aesthetic; from the drilling of ever-expanding construction sites, the cacophony of car horns in unpredictable traffic, the drone of randomly juxtaposed electricity generators powering an entire city, and the thousands of wandering tankers pumping water into apartment blocks. Colorful fields of raw noise evolve into soothing agents of amnesia, in an absurdly elongated post-war period. “DANCE GROOVES FOR THE WEARY” marks a departure from Two or The Dragon’s usual trademarks. The prevailing attitude here is one of sobriety and caution, undoubtedly as a result of the events that started dismantling the fabric of Lebanese society, from October 2019 to the present day.
Kobeissy’s solo piece, on which this EP is based, was composed in the Fall of 2020, following THE most violent summer in Lebanon’s history. As “DANCE GROOVES FOR THE WEARY” progresses, the initial sense of sobriety and caution seems to have run its course. The physical detonation of the drum machine – an agent provocateur of sorts – paves the way for an emotionally charged finale, with faint traces of a Bizet melody and a grinding, distorted daf.
At the heart of this new work is a desire to provide solace for the megalomaniac, the tired, the frightened, the bored, and the hopeful alike. A slap in the face of Lebanon’s ongoing, undeterred collective amnesia.
Ziad Nawfal’s 6th monthly mix for Movement Radio in Athens – featuring music from Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Palestine, Turkey and Indonesia. This mix was commissioned and produced by Onassis Cultural Center, and presented for the first time in the frame of MOVEMENT RADIO.
1. Faten Kanaan – The North Wind [SY/PS/JO/LB]
2. Senyawa – Alkisah I (Anthony Sahyoun Remix) [LB]
3. Anthony Sahyoun – Two Foxes Trotting on A Lane in Qartaba [LB]
4. Charbel Haber – Beside A Monument to Whirling Nebulas of Murderers’ Fantasies, dressed in Sunday Best, Lay the Bodies of Docile Beasts [LB]
5. The Bunny Tylers – The Skies and Planets Over Stalingrad Days Before the Defeat [LB]
6. Fadi Tabbal – After the Fire, Before the End (feat. Julia Sabra) [LB]
7. Asaf Zeki Yüksel – Democracy Lessons [TR]
8. Marc Codsi – A Light [LB]
9. Senyawa – Istana (Jawad Nawfal Remix) [ID/LB]
10. NAR – Ma Tensa [LB]
Ruptured Music 